Zimbabwe

2010

As heads of state gathered last week at
the summit of the Southern African Development Community, or SADC, in Namibia,
their discussions were dominated by the progress
of Zimbabwe's precarious power-sharing political agreement, which includes
pledges to address a repressive
media environment. Leading the mediation in the Zimbabwean crisis has been
neighboring South Africa, which has been seen as a one-eyed man among the blind
in terms of democracy and press freedom in Southern Africa. Yet the moral
authority of South African president Jacob Zuma in Zimbabwe's situation is
undermined by proposals of his African National Congress-led government to
restrict the vibrant press in South Africa.

Each year, UNESCO honors a courageous international journalist with the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize, named in honor of the Colombian editor murdered in 1986 by the Medellín Cartel. The prize is chosen by an independent jury and over the years I've attended several moving ceremonies in which some of the most daring journalists of our generation have been honored.

Zimbabwe’s beleaguered independent media won a major victory
when an official commission granted publishing licenses to four daily newspapers,
including TheDaily News, the nation’s
leading paper before it was outlawed seven years ago. The news was greeted with cheers from independent journalists, who have endured years of repression, arrest, and violence at the hands of Zimbabwe’s authoritarian government.

In Uganda, a ruling this week in a landmark case of two journalists seeking to compel their government’s disclosure of multinationals oil deals highlighted the challenges to public transparency just before media leaders, press freedom advocates, officials, and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter gather in Ghana next week at the African Regional Conference on the Right of Access to Information.